Rational Expectations and the Foreign Exchange Market

Peter R. Hartley

NBER Working Paper No. 863Issued in February 1982NBER Program(s): ITIIFM

Many models of exchange rate determination imply that movements in money supplies and demands should result in movements in exchange rates. Hence, if rational agents are attempting to forecast exchange rate movements, they should in the first instance forecast movements in the supplies of and demands for money balances. Furthermore, if these underlying variables follow some stable autoregressive processes agents should use those processes to make their forecasts. If we identify the forward rate with the market's expectation for the future spot rate, rationality of expectations will imply testable cross-equation restrictions in a joint model of the autoregressions and exchange rate forecasting equation. This strategy is implemented in the paper using data on the L UK/$US and DM/$US exchange rates from the recent floating rate period.

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